{"id":550247,"date":"2026-04-25T16:24:44","date_gmt":"2026-04-25T16:24:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/550247\/"},"modified":"2026-04-25T16:24:44","modified_gmt":"2026-04-25T16:24:44","slug":"a-german-photographers-lost-and-found-photos-of-new-yorks-chelsea-hotel-1969-1971","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/550247\/","title":{"rendered":"A German Photographer’s Lost And Found Photos of New York’s Chelsea Hotel – 1969-1971"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0\u201cI didn\u2019t know it was going to be such an important moment in history. To someone coming from Germany, New York was a different world.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2013 Albert Scopin on living at the Chelsea Hotel, NYC<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Chelsea<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Albert Scopin was taking photos of life at New York\u2019s<\/a> Chelsea Hotel at 222 West 23rd Street when it was at the epicentre of free expression. The German photographer lived there from 1969 to 1971, attracted to its presence of musicians and reputation as a cultural haven.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was the day after the Americans made it to the moon,\u201d he tells Se\u00e1n O\u2019Hagan<\/a>\u00a0of the day he moved in. \u201cThere was a lot of excitement in the air, but I didn\u2019t have much money and no idea where to go. Luckily, I met some musicians who told me about the Chelsea.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe hotel was well known; people said you had to be there,\u201d he adds in conversation with Julia Silverberg<\/a>. \u201cI also didn\u2019t have much money, and I could live there for $40 a week.\u201d<\/p>\n

For more than four decades his pictures went unpublished.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt the time we were really busy,\u201d he says. \u201cI sent the photographs to friends who worked at ZEITmagazin<\/a>. I trusted they were being well kept there, but we were doing so much throughout the 70s; we didn\u2019t think much about it. It was only when I returned to Germany<\/a> that I wanted my material back \u2013 and realised it was gone.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Wim Wenders hanging out<\/p>\n

\u201cFrom the summer of \u201969 until the spring of \u201972 I was a more or less permanent resident at the Chelsea Hotel \u2013 hopping from room to room depending on my budget. Initially, after arriving in NY I worked as a photographic assistant to Bill King<\/a> who, at the time, did mainly photoshoots for Harpers Bazaar.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs a matter of good fortune his Studio was located close to the Warhol Factory and [Andy] Warhol<\/a> shot a number of scenes for his movies Flesh and Trash at the studio. In this way I not only got to know the Warhol crowd, but was also allowed a front row seat and was able to observe them closely. For the movies they effectively had to play themselves and I was absolutely stunned and fascinated by the transvestites: the certainty, the ambiguity and ever present sexuality.<\/p>\n

\u201cBy mid-1970 I had quit my job with Bill King and began to document the city as it happened around me. As a freelance photographer I covered numerous topics including street art, the Run Away Kids of East Village and the Chelsea Hotel. Thankfully, the then brand new Zeit Magazin, Hamburg<\/a>, published many of these early projects.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2013 Albert Scopin<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Chelsea<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cBroadly speaking the inhabitants of the Chelsea Hotel could be split into three groups. First, there were the artists. They occupied the upper floors and existed within a strict hierarchy according to the degree of success and external recognition. Second came the musicians, film makers and writers that drifted in and out of NY and crashed at the Chelsea Hotel. The final group, the most mysterious, were the druggies and the dealers. To the best of my knowledge they occupied the third floor, but they existed in complete isolation and were never spoken of.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2013 Albert Scopin at the Chelsea Hotel<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"chelsea
\n<\/a><\/p>\n

The hotel reception, 1971<\/p>\n

For more than 40 years Stanley Bard (above; centre with glasses) was the Chelsea\u2019s director and hotel manager. Stanley started out at the Chelsea in 1957 as a plumber\u2019s assistant, employed by his father, who co-owned the hotel. After his father died in 1964 Stanley took over. If an artist couldn\u2019t pay the bill, Stanley would let them pay with a painting. This gave rise to a notable collection, which could be admired in the foyer and corridors. He clung tenaciously to his positive spirit and his unshakeable belief that there is good in everyone.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Chancy and De\u0301vaureaux<\/p>\n

Chelsea Hotel On Film<\/p>\n

\u201cTogether with friends we went on to found the Yonah Yeend Production Company and set out to document life off-off Broadway. This short clip about the Chelsea Hotel was actually made as a pilot, which we pitched to the NDR in Hamburg to attract funding for a larger documentary we had planned. Amazingly they agreed, but because we didn\u2019t budget very well, the film was never made \u2013 a regrettable folly of my youth.<\/p>\n

\u201cEven though the film was never made, it does exist in my head. Living at the Chelsea Hotel I studied its inhabitants very closely. Never before and never thereafter have I encountered a crowd more diverse, more vein and more fantastical. The bizarre paradox I observed was that in all their efforts to be unique, in all their efforts to become noticed, in all their efforts to become famous \u2013 all those people were surprisingly similar \u2013 made similar by their efforts to be different.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2026there are two people I would like to mention in connection with this clip: Patti Smith and Robert Mapplethorpe. The two lived in a dilapidated building just next door to the Hotel and are so closely intertwined with all my memories of the Chelsea Hotel that I can\u2019t not mention them. Patti fascinated me from the very start. She really was completely different to any other human I had ever met before. She was pure energy. Everything was an experiment and everything was to be understood. Robert, on the other hand, was a cool cynic, yet the two stood united in their fundamental aim to get to the top and I am incredibly pleased to know that they really made it!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Chelsea<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI wanted to photograph people\u2019s inner selves, which isn\u2019t naturally possible. Though, in a certain way, I believe I found an approach: everyone\u2019s room at the Chelsea was more or less their inner self.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2013 Albert Scopin<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

George Kleinsinger in his jungle-themed room<\/p>\n

\u201cI was very lucky to see these very strange, expressive rooms. They were on the upper floors, from the eighth to the twelfth, and were absolutely mind-blowing \u2013 different worlds from door to door. You\u2019d meet the people in the elevator, talk to them, and sometimes they\u2019d just invite you to come in\u2026<\/p>\n

\u201cGeorge Kleinsinger was a musician who was totally into animals; his room was a jungle. Another room was totally empty and white, containing only the silver helium cushions from Warhol and nothing else. It was very extreme.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2013 Albert Scopin<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Chelsea<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Patti Smith and Robert Mapplethorpe<\/p>\n

\u201cI met Patti and Robert Mapplethorpe at a nude photoshoot in Bill King\u2019s studio when I was working as his assistant,\u201d says Albert. \u201cAt that time, in 1969 and 1970, Bill King,was doing those shoots almost daily, usually in the evenings after commercial studio production had stopped. Robert was visibly uncomfortable about those pictures but Patti was full of energy, the exact opposite of Robert. Her presence filled the studio. It seemed as if she could run up walls and along ceilings. That woman made a deep impression on Bill, and on me too.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Chelsea
\n<\/a><\/p>\n

Patti Smith<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cPatti was focused in some ways but anarchic in others. Her room was the epitome of \u2018creative\u2019 chaos. Her husky voice gave you goosebumps, especially when she was reciting her own poems, which she did happily and often. It was obvious that Patti was on her way up, she wanted to go on stage, she wanted to be seen and heard. You could sense that success was not far away, that she would be famous one day.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Robert Mappleforth and Pattie Smith<\/p>\n

\"Chelsea<\/p>\n

Robert Mapplethorpe in his studio<\/p>\n

\u201cRobert had his studio on the ground floor of the Chelsea annexe. The first time I visited him there in 1970 he was working on erotic collages that were fantastically bold. The next year he started experimenting with Polaroid material. Later he said of that experimental phase: \u2018I began to understand that photography can be art.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\" \"Chelsea \"Chesea \"\"<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Patti Smith wall of fame<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Patti Smith at home<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Vali Myers<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u201cIt was wild in the sense that we were open to new ideas. Everybody believed in building up a new world. Naturally, some people experimented with drugs, but that wasn\u2019t the basis. People worked seriously on projects; everybody thought that theirs was the best,\u201d he laughs. \u201cThere were lots of little Andy Warhols around.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2013 Albert Scopin<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Shirley Clarke<\/p>\n

\u201cEverybody wanted to be recognised as a star. I also painted my camera yellow at the time, so nobody was afraid of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2013 Albert Scopin<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Germaine Greer<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I wanted to photograph Germaine Greer, she flipped the gender roles. She told me she thought that if men wanted to talk to women, they had to sleep with them first.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2013 Albert Scopin<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cLiving at the Chelsea were the most formative days of my life. Even though it wasn\u2019t easy, it was a very special time for me. I met so many fascinating people who confronted me with new ideas and lifestyle. My entire value system collapsed and had to be rebuilt. These people accepted me warts and all, I was one of them. In that atmosphere of acceptance, all the anxieties that had been drummed into me burnt to a cinder. I remember days when I was aglow inside, aglow and aflame. I felt boundlessly free, never again in my later years did I have an experience like it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2013 Albert Scopin<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Order Scopin: Chelsea Hotel, published by Kerber Verlag.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u00a0\u201cI didn\u2019t know it was going to be such an important moment in history. To someone coming from…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":550248,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[6225,6485,6486,1120,96,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-550247","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts-and-design","tag-arts","tag-arts-and-design","tag-artsanddesign","tag-design","tag-entertainment","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/550247","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=550247"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/550247\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/550248"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=550247"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=550247"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=550247"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}